Cielo Magno

Cielo Magno is a Filipino academic who is a former Undersecretary of the Department of Finance. She served as the Undersecretary for the Fiscal Policy and Monitoring Group from August 2022 to September 4, 2023. She also served as the Chairperson of the Philippine Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, the Fiscal Incentives Review Board (FIRB) Technical Committee, and the Inter-Agency Investment Promotion Coordination Committee (IIPCC) Technical Committee. She resigned from her post after she criticized Executive Order No. 39 of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. which imposed the price ceiling on rice prices. She posted the basic graph of supply and demand curve on her Facebook page with the line showing how the price cap can lead to rice supply shortages and may negatively affect farmers and consumers. Her post earned the ire of Malacanang with Executive Secretary Lucas Bersamin issuing a statement saying that "she clearly does not support the administration and its programs for nation-building." Her controversial post earned her the reputation "for speaking her mind" especially on careless policies that may significantly affect the people's welfare.

Magno is a tenured associate professor in the University of the Philippines School of Economics before she was seconded to the Department of Finance to serve as Undersecretary under the leadership of Secretary Benjamin Diokno. She was also recently selected to represent the civil society in the Global Steering Committee of the Open Government Partnership.

Early life and education
Cielo Magno was born in Gapan City, Nueva Ecija Philippines to Dr. Crispin Magno, an optometrist and Lorenza Diaz a businesswoman. Her family resides in San Isidro, Nueva Ecija. She grew up with her grandparents, Judge Julio P. Magno and pianist Dominga Magno who taught her how to play the piano when she was only four years old. She recently took up playing the saxophone.

Magno is a product of public education having attended San Isidro Central School, eventually transferring to Gapan North Central School where she graduated as class valedictorian. She completed her high school at Divina Pastora College where she also graduated as class valedictorian. Magno entered the University of the Philippines Diliman in 1994. She graduated from the UP School of Economics with degrees in Bachelor of Science in Business Economics and a Masters in Economics.

While a student at the University of the Philippines Diliman, she was elected as the Chairperson of the University Student Council. She was the third woman to be elected chair since the University Student Council was founded in 1913. She was also a member of the world renowned UP Concert Chorus and was part of the1996 international touring batch of Dean Reynaldo Paguio.

In 2005, Magno was awarded the Fulbright Scholarship for a PhD in Law and Public Policy at Northeastern University in Boston Massachusetts with a dissertation examining how pharmaceutical companies influence doctors' decisions on prescribing medication.

Career
Magno is an associate professor in the University of the Philippines' School of Economics. She has more than twenty years of experience in research and policy work with the public and the private sector including local and international agencies. Her research and interests focus on public finance; law, health, institutional, and resource economics; and industry regulation. Her publications include discussions on health, pharmaceutical competition and access to medicine,   corruption, foreign investments, decentralization and local public finance,   transportation policy, energy and mining,   civic space and human rights, natural resources, economic and social development,   mental health and spirituality, and the court system.

Early in her career she served as the executive director of the National Movement of Young Legislators (NMYL). NMYL is a local government league of young legislators. She served as the National Coordinator of Bantay Kita/Publish What You Pay Philippines, the coalition of civil society organizations calling for transparency and accountability in the mining and oil and gas sector from 2012 to 2016 and helped found the Philippine EITI.

Magno served as a member of the international board of the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative for seven years. During her tenure as a board member, the EITI Standard has evolved to include disclosures on social and environmental impacts of extractive industries, contracts, beneficial ownership and free prior and informed consent on top of the financial disclosure required by the transparency and accountability organization. She has been championing transparency and accountability in the mining sector and has been pushing for fiscal, social, and environmental reforms. She also sat on the board of various civil society organizations.

Magno has been a champion of anti-corruption initiatives in and outside government.